Unfolding the Surface of Information

Abstract

Introduction Electronic interactive raises many questions regarding the nature of design. Can the speed and ubiquity of new information, broadly construed, be understood through older theories of communication-or is there a threshold that we begin to cross where immediate distribution through electronic networks and user interaction contradicts many older definitions of design? There is a crisis in our understanding. The older models and applied theories of maker and audience seem insufficient within this environment, yet, what theories are provided seem to be placed within a hypothetical future that seems unconnected with the present. To examine the present is extremely difficult. Rather than decrying the differences between historical literacy and the electronic environment, or seeking to stake out specializations as professional territory, it is important that we recognize the existence of a cultural system of meaning and transmission which hybridizes and appropriates literally anything if it can be made to function effectively for a particular motivation or need. The historical understanding of information as being static, materialistic in the sense of the creation of the physical artifacts of print, and linear has been superseded. There are at least four major schisms between print and electronic information, primarily of time and velocity, indexing, immateriality and ephemerality, and the simulation of a visual perspective for the user (or point-of-view). These breaks challenge the notion of a historical understanding based totally within print.